My apologies. Too much else is going on, so I am seldom current on my watchlist and am now running about 4 weeks behind; some articles in my tab list are months behind because I need to examine sources. That has some sad implications. If I make an edit today, that does not mean I'm current on my watchlist. If an article has lots of activity, then I may not look at that article until the activity has stopped for a few days. (I do jump ahead sometimes.) Even if I see some article changes, I may queue them for later handling because I don't have the time to check them now. Unfortunately, the further back they fall, the less likely they will be addressed.

"Eternity is a very long time — especially toward the end." ― Woody Allen

"It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future." — Yogi Berra[1]

"You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." — Yogi Berra[2]

"You had a leak? You call what's goin' on around here a leak? Boy, the last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat." ― James A. Wells, Assistant U.S. Attorney General, Absence of Malice

"You're gonna need a bigger boat." ― Martin C. Brody, Jaws. When Aaron Sorkin was asked what was the best line ever written, he quoted this one, but the line was an ad lib. I bet Sorkin knew.

"No es Canadiense! Todos Canadienses hablan polaco!" ["You're no Canadian! All Canadians speak Polish!"] ― Spanish officer trying to interrogate a Canadian flier in Polish at Miranda de Ebro concentration camp (where Polish refugees who spoke English would claim to be Canadian so they would not be returned to the Nazis). The flier was classified as stateless. Enigma, Władyshaw Kozaczuk translated by Christopher Kasparek, University Publications of America 1984, pp 152–154

"I could see our escort fighters weaving in their protective pattern... our bomber pilots also sighted the enemy force and, without orders, raced for low altitude. ... Even as we pulled out above the jungle, our escort fighters turned into the attacking planes.... For a few moments I lost sight of Yamamoto's plane and finally located the Betty far to the right. I was horrified to see the airplane flying slowly just above the jungle, headed to the south, with bright orange flames rapidly enveloping the wings and fuselage. ... I stared hopelessly as a silver H-shaped P-38 half-rolled in a screaming zoom, then turned steeply, and closed rapidly toward our plane. ... I watched the P-38's nose seem to burst into twinkling flame, and suddenly the bomber shook from the impact of the enemy's machine gun bullets and cannon shells. The P-38 pilot was an excellent gunner, for his first fusilade of bullets and shells crashed into the right side of the airplane, then into the left. The drumming sounds vibrated through the airplane which rocked from the impact of the enemy fire. ... One by one our answering machine guns fell silent. ... Another canon shell suddenly tore open the right wing. ... a Zero pilot above us ... reported heavy smoke pouring from our bomber ... the pilot ... could no longer control the aircraft. Enemy bullets had shattered the cables. ... The impact of the crash momentarily stunned me, and everything turned black." — Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki, Chief of Staff of the Combined Fleet, describing 18 April 1943 attack over Bougainville Island, quoted in Attack on Yamamoto, Carroll V. Glines, New York: Orion Books, 1990, ISBN0-517-57728-3, pp 99-101.

"Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience." — George CarlinAlso possibly Greg King. Attributed to Mark Twain but word usage slightly off. Similar to "When arguing with fools, don't answer their foolish arguments, or you will become as foolish as they are." — Proverbs 26:4

"Very interesting. $50,000." — Lan Jen Chu. Power company's transmission towers were being destroyed by lightning strikes. Company tried better grounding systems and other fixes without success. The company described the problem to Chu, and he immediately saw the problem. Chu didn't want an hourly fee because he already knew the answer, but the company recoiled at the large flat fee. Since the solution was immediately obvious to Chu, the company did not hire him but rather went back to its engineers telling them that if Chu figured it out quickly by looking a few pictures, they should be able to figure it out with a little more time. But the engineers didn't figure it out, and the power company ultimately paid Chu. Making a better ground had made the problem worse; the solution was to remove a strut that made a large shorted loop.

"Speak not to him, for God hath rendered him tasteless." B. Klibanpossibly in Two Guys Fooling Around with the Moon (1982) ISBN0-89480-198-8

"Okay so maybe I was overly ambitious with my plan to post a weekly lust list. It’s not that there was any shortage of things I loved lately, more that there always seemed to be a shortage of something far more valuable: time. First I picked up a last minute freelance job on a yacht in the Bahamas (plenty of things to love there) and was too busy working to play on my computer. And then when I did have the luxury of time, I was working on Bahamas Wi-Fi which is comparable to trying to start a fire with a coconut. Pretty much pointless." — Kate Chastain, Lucky Charming.

"I am a damned sight smarter man than Grant. I know more about military history, strategy, and grand tactics than he does. I know more about supply, administration, and everything else than he does. I'll tell you where he beats me though and where he beats the world. He doesn't give a damn about what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell. … I am more nervous than he is. I am more likely to change my orders or to countermarch my command than he is. He uses such information as he has according to his best judgment; he issues his orders and does his level best to carry them out without much reference to what is going on about him and, so far, experience seems to have fully justified him." — William Tecumseh Sherman. Comments to James H. Wilson (22 October 1864), as quoted in Under the Old Flag: Recollections of Military Operations in the War for the Union, the Spanish War, the Boxer Rebellion, etc Vol. 2 (1912) by James Harrison Wilson, p. 17.

"It has been a damned serious business... Blücher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life." — Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, about the Battle of Waterloo to Thomas Creevey (18 June 1815). "Nice" used as "doubtful"; "a damned nice thing" sometimes quoted as "a damn close-run thing". T. Creevy, Reminiscences (28 July 1822); Creevey Papers (1903), Ch. X, p. 236.

"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb… and I also know that I'm not blonde." — Dolly Parton

"Oatsn.f. [aten, Saxon.] A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." — Samuel JohnsonDictionary of the English Language, J. & P. Knapton, London, 1755.[6]

"The good that people do is oft in turd with their bones." — Alex K, 14-years old. A Lady Mondegreen during a discussion of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Alex blamed us for bringing up poop, and explained that owl poop has bones in it.

Putting a star in her place. Julia Robert's young daughter started to realize her mom might be special, so she asked, "Mommy, are you famous?" Roberts replied, "Yes." The daughter followed up with, "Famous like Taylor Swift?" 6 April 2017.

"Coram[9] used the tried and true 'CPR method' to pop the top on this trash bin." — CBS News[10]

"It was absolutely marvelous working for Wolfgang Pauli. You could ask him anything. There was no worry that he would think a particular question was stupid, since he thought all questions were stupid." — Victor Weisskopf

"He doesn't have sense enough to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel." — LBJ, Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Anecdotes, page 319

"When you have a bunch of government-haters getting control of the government, it’s no surprise they don’t know how to make things operate effectively." — John Sparksquoted in Russell Berman, 2 December 2017, "The Red State Revolt Spreads to Oaklahoma", The Atlantic

Whereas it Is most apparent, That the Multitude of Coffee-houses of late Years set up and kept within this Kingdom, the Dominion of Wales, and the Town of Berwick upon Tweed, and the great resort of Idle and Disaffected persons to them, have produced very evil and dangerous Effects, as well for that many Tradesmen and others do therein misspend much of their time, which might and probably would otherwise be employed in and about their lawful Callings and Affairs; but also, for that in such Houses, and by occasion of the meetings of such persons therein, the divers false, malicious and scandalous Reports are devised and spread abroad, to the Defamation of His Majesties Government, and to the Disturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm. His Majesty hath thought it fit and necessary, That the said Coffee-houses be (for the future) Put Down and Suppressed: And doth (with the Advice of His Privy Council) by this His Royal Proclamation, strictly Charge and Command all manner of Persons, That they, or any of them, do not presume from and after the 10th day of January next ensuing, to keep any publick Coffee-house, or to utter or sell by Retail, in his, her or their House or Houses (to be spent or consumed within the same) any Coffee, Chocolet, Sherbett or Tea, as they will answer the contrary at their utmost Perils. And for the better accomplishment of this His Majesties Royal Pleasure, His Majesty doth hereby Will and Require the Justices of Peace within their several Counties, and the chief Magistrates in all Cities and Towns Corporate, That they do at the next respective General Sessions of the Peace (to be holden within their several and respective Counties, Divisions and Precincts) Recall and Make void all Licences at any time heretofore Granted for the Selling or Retailing of any Coffee, Chocolet, Sherbett, or Tea: And that they, or any of them, do not (for the future) Make or Grant any such Licence or Licences to any Person or Persons whatsoever. And His Majesty doth further hereby Declare, That if any Person or Persons shall take upon them, him or her, after his, her or their Licence or Licences Recalled, or otherwise without Licence, to sell by Retail (as aforesaid) any of the Liquors aforesaid, that then the Person or Persons so offending, shall not only be proceeded against upon the Statute made in the Fifteenth Year of His Majesties Reign (which gives the forfeiture of Five pounds for every Month, wherein he, she or they shall offend therein) but shall (in case they persevere to offend) receive the severest Punishments that may by Law be inflicted.

Given at Our Court at Whitehall, this Twenty ninth day of December 1675. In the Seven and twentieth Year of Our Reign.

"You are really nuts, you know it? One a these days they're gonna come over and just lock you up! You aren't playing with a full deck, Eunice. I think somebody blew your pilot light out." — Vicki Lawrence, Sorry, The Carol Burnett Show

"Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. That's why we train so hard." — attributed to a Navy Seal. I first heard it in 1980. Variation of Archilochus, "We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training." See Quora.

"So [the F-104] was an easy airplane to fly, but unforgiving in the sense that it had all — if the engine quit, and they often did, it had all the gliding characteristics of a set of car keys. So you could — I mean, we did have a high loss rate. But it was a wonderful airplane. I mean, it was the only airplane since the Wright Brothers to hold all of the important records, the absolute speed, time to climb into any altitude. And the absolute altitude record was over a hundred thousand feet, a hundred and three thousand or something like. Marvelous airplane. Just what every lieutenant needs is an airplane like that and a credit card so he can buy gas." — Merrill McPeak[11]

"You'll be interested and amused to know that you are now talking to the chief research scientist of the Metaplast Corporation, whose staff consisted of one bottle-washer!" — Richard Feynman to Frederic de Hoffmann, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman": Adventures of a Curious Character, 1985, Norton, p. 58.

Donald Knuth gave a wonderful talk about his attempt to make a good psuedo random number generator – an attempt that quickly found a fixed point so the generator just emitted the same number at each call.

Manuel Blum gave an hour-long one-slide lecture that included how to make a biased random number generator less biased.

Ages ago, a professor was lecturing about image processing. Studies showed that serif fonts were easier to read, and that's why newspapers printed with fonts such as Times. He went on to explain how the serifs made character components more prominent: a serifed stem didn't wash out at the bottom. Studies showed that serif fonts could be read at greater distances — something that is important for highway signs. Of course, he pointed out that all the highway signs out there are sans serif.

I think I've only read one book on typography and a few bits of advice here and there. By and large, I just use the default settings and layout that the application offers. Or the guidance of experts. Dan is a wizard at that stuff: he told me why gutter margins are smaller. Dan would talk about people going font-happy and producing tortured layouts. Charles was happy to leave the layout and font selection to his publisher: they were professionals and made everything look beautiful.

That book on typography had a list of common mistakes. One point was use black ink. High contrast makes text easier to read. I've seen plenty of books that didn't do that, and it makes my eyes hurt just looking at a page.

Another point was body text should use a serif font. Helvetica is pretty, and you can read a paragraph or two without much trouble, but it's not fun to read a lot. The classic layout is sans serif for the headings and serif for the body.

Of course, Wikipedia does it backwards. Serif headings and sans serif body text. Go figure. Several years ago, I was reading a court case on FindLaw.com when I was asked for comments about the site. I complained that it was using a sans serif font for its body text. A month later I noticed that it had switched to a serif font.

Arguably, there's was a reason for sans serif fonts on low resolution computer screens, but I don't think that holds today.[12]

Sadly, displaying mathematics formulas seems to have a tortured existence. HTML5 has been touted for some time, and with it is the promise of native MathML and SVG.

Many years ago, I downloaded Design Science's free MathML rendering engine, MathPlayer. I looked at MathML then, but it was clear I would stick with TeX. Wikipedia uses TeX: expressions are described in TeX syntax, and then a renderer converts them to an image. The formulas cannot be copied and pasted because they are just images. The images give a good visual result in displays, but the inline result is poor: sin⁡2πx{\displaystyle \sin 2\pi x}. The size, baseline, and font are different. Consequently, a lot of (simple) inline math is being replaced with character markup: sin 2πx. Copy and paste sort of works, but there are still some quirks: TeX-style math uses a serif font, but the character markup is sans serif. More recently, the {{mvar}} and {{math}} templates have fixed that by switching to a serif font: sin 2πx. So, the world is improving.

Even with the TeX-style image-based math, there were improvements. Editors were starting to add <math alt="description"> to improve accessibility. There were even talk page discussions about improving the alt text. Then some screwy things happened. A bug was introduced in <math> processing that messed up the display, so several articles got well-meaning but poor workaround edits to "fix" the display. Things should be fixed where they are broken. A little later something went wrong with alt= processing, and it affected those who were using MathJax. The result was the alt= descriptions were being deleted as a workaround. It seems wrong to be diking out accommodations.

Recently, I read a note seeking guinea pigs for MathML rendering on WP.[1] Consequently, I took another look at math rendering and found it is taking steps forward and backward.

Using the Firefox browser, the MathML Torture Test webpage shows some sad results. Donald Knuth did a fabulous job with TeX's rendering, and MathML is trying to catch up. As a result of visiting the page, I downloaded some more math fonts.

On another front, some special-purpose code that uses Unicode characters to render some mathematical expressions showed the new math fonts did not render the same as some other Unicode fonts. Some digging showed that math fonts need a special math table, but the specification for that table is currently proprietary.[2] Proprietary tables in an open specification? Sigh. Well, more fonts have to be better. Using a Windows 10 machine showed its native fonts had better Unicode coverage, but the glyph sizes varied widely (even within a single font), and some extension bars looked thinner than what they were designed to extend (well, at least they were there; they weren't part of Microsoft's earlier recommendation).

Viewing the MathML Torture Test webpage with the Microsoft Edge browser brought a shock: Edge does not support MathML. Furthermore, Edge does not allow extensions yet, so third parties (such as Design Science) cannot support MathML. Moreover, Internet Explorer 10 does not permit Design Science's MathPlayer to run, so MathML support in Microsoft browsers has essentially disappeared.[3] Other browser companies are dropping out. The Google Chrome browser dropped support of MathML a year ago.[4] Also poking around turned up criticism of MathJax.[5] MathML support is declining rather than growing.

I'm not a fan of XML, and MathML is XML. XML is a language for interchange; it is not a system for real work. XML may allow iteration and manipulation, but it is not meant to be a substitute for a large database. Not only that, MathML is really two different specifications: one for presentation and one for content. The presentation format is an odd, half-step, context sensitive, affair. The MathML renderer must look at the text of an element (some Unicode character or characters) and consult a dictionary to get information about how to render that element.[6] The content format might be better as just Scheme syntax (shades of early symbolic algebra programs: James Robert Slagle's 1961 SAINT (Symbolic Automatic INTegrator), William A. Martin's 1966 Symbolic Mathematical Laboratory, Joel Moses's 1967 Symbolic Integration, and Macsyma). Even if MathML is poor and schizophrenic, a browser that can display math formulas is better than one that cannot.

In the middle 1960s, William A. Martin wrote a symbolic mathematics program in Lisp.[7] A portion of that system would draw an expression on the plotter. The system recursively calculated the sizes of subexpressions, used those sizes to choose appropriate sizes for symbols such as integral signs and parentheses, and then positioned the representation to make a larger unit. Simple and elegant. Knuth came along a bit later, studied how math was typeset, and gave us TeX. I don't like its substitution semantics, but it has many good features.

You gotta love it. Cambridge University puts Stephen Hawking's 1966 PhD thesis, Properties of expanding universes, on its website. The rush to access the work was so great that the website crashed. Hawking stated, "It's wonderful to hear how many people have already shown an interest in downloading my thesis - hopefully they won't be disappointed now that they finally have access to it!"[2]

Ken comes in one day and announces that he can tell which of three formatting programs were used to compose a paper. There's some disbelief, but Ken can do it. He explains he looks at the last line of a justified paragraph; each program used a different justification method. One program used a minimum spacing between words until the line bumped into the right margin; it would break the line before the bump word and expand the word spacing to reach the margin. Consequently, the last line of a paragraph always looked crowded. The second program would maximally space the words until it bumped into the margin; it would keep the bump word and shrink the word spacing to make the line fit. Its last line always looked expanded. The third program used an average space until it hit the right margin; then it would decide whether to shrink the spaces and keep the bump word or to expand the spaces and drop the bump word. Its last line of a paragraph always looked reasonable.

Ken comes in another day and claims he can tell which technology somebody used to write a paper: computer terminal, high resolution screen, or printed paper draft. He explained that the computer terminal only showed about a paragraph at a time; if the paper showed coherence over a paragraph but not a page, it was written on a terminal. If the paper showed coherence over a page but not the entire paper, it was written on high resolution screen that showed a page at a time. If the paper was coherent, then it had been printed out.

After that description, they describe some findings. Morris had found a known plaintext attack on the M-209 needed only 75 characters. (Diffie & Hellman 1981, p. 26) Diffie and Hellman conclude, "These improvements allow known plaintext attacks to succeed with 50 to 100 characters of text, and ciphertext only attacks to succeed with 1000 to 2000 characters of text." (Diffie & Hellman 1981, p. 27)

I was so surprised at the claims that I wrote a trivial version. If I threw 20,000 characters of encrypted text at my simple version, it would spit out readable text without any help.

US 4487938, Boileau, Jacques; Jean-Marie L Emeury & Jean-Paul Kehren, "Tetranitroglycoluril and method of preparation thereof", published September 21, 1982, issued December 11, 1984, says "Cyclotrimethylene trinitramine or RDX or Hexogen was first synthesized in 1916 by Brunswig (German Pat. No. 299,028) but its value as an explosive was only recognized by Von Herz in 1920 (British Pat. No. 145 791). It came into significant use only during World War II."

After the weapon is fired, air races into the barrel once the bullet has left the muzzle. This vacuum can pull in trace amounts of materials from the environment.

Police can use blood and tissue which have entered a gun barrel through blowback in an investigation.

Blowback can also refer to the combination of gasses, dirt, and debris (unburnt powder, metal shavings) that most firearms produce upon firing. This can cause great irritation to the eyes and most ranges or organizations suggest or require the use of safety glasses when firing pistols.

Repeated at Blowback as "vacuum effect created in the barrel of a firearm when it is discharged".

"Blowback from the muzzle cloud. The major portion of gunshot residues are emitted from the muzzle of the weapon and some of these residues may flash back and be deposited on the firer.", Gunshot Residue (GSR): Analysis, http://chemstone.net/Forensics/GSR.html

Van Gogh's Yellow House (painting). Yellow House was destroyed during WWII, but neighboring building is still there. Railway bridge in the distance is also still there, but disused and overgrown. Detail in stone work matches.

Not a controversy, but I requested deletion of an article by User talk:PowerGDS. That request was promoted to speedy deletion and a challenge to the user name. User added another article, and I requested speedy deletion. Articles deleted and user permanently blocked.

ExactScan; article primarily edited by SPA User:Many Tries and 85.183.32.166; geolocate identifies latter as recent forum spammer (see, for example, 22 September 2011 comment at bottom of freecode project claiming open source project is just trial version of commercial product without open source); ExactScan, ExactImage, and René Rebe are common topics.

When discussing DAB for Ultra, User:Username1234567891011 moved the pages in the middle of the discussion. His user page showed some other problems. While considering whether to talk or report (learning about article renaming policy), the user was indef'd.

"Copyright in a new version of a previously copyrighted work (such as an arrangement, translation, dramatization, compilation, or work republished with new matter) covers only the additions, changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in that version. The copyright secured in a new version is independent of any copyright protection in material published or copyrighted earlier, and the only authors of a new version are those who contributed copyrightable matter to it."

Chandra had a copy of the photo on his office wall. The passport photo was taken in Brittain in 1919. Chandra went to India in 1936. Chandra's brother actually made the photographic copy of the passport image. Hardy to Chandra: "I was extremely glad to have the photograph, which seems to me an extremely good one. He looks rather ill (and no doubt was very ill): but he looks all over the genius he was."

Presumably, wife had no dealings with English photographer. Hardy published his book in England, but got his image from Chandra rather than the English photographer.

Three images in article were copied from a book. I nominated for deletion on Commons. Contributor claimed to be the author of the book, but did not know whether he still held the copyright. Files deleted after a long time.

In 1939, when the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was officially opened, there were special Hall of Fame postcards picturing honored members. Various publishers have been utilized over the years to produce cards for the Hall of Fame. One set we have listed was issued in 1995 and is complete for all players inducted through and including 1995 except for Sam Thompson. The other set is the latest just released this year which has all inductees to 2009. Each card is a photographic reproduction of the member's official Hall of Fame plaque. The back is in standard postcard format and contains player name, year of election and electorate, date of printing, the manufacturer (Mike Roberts Color Productions in nearly every case) and copyright information on the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum. Note: a sampling of three cards are pictured.

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) took the iconic photograph Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. Copies of that photograph have sold for over $600,000. Reports have stated that the photograph was taken in 1940, 1941, 1942, or 1944. The last date is wrong because the photograph was published in a 1943 book. Astronomers David Elmore and Dennis di Cicco became interested in the date, and in 1991 both agreed that the photograph was taken 1 November 1941 4:49 pm. In 1941, US Secretary of the InteriorHarold Ickes had hired Adams for six months to take pictures of land controlled by the Department of the Interior.[22] Assume the picture was taken during those 6 months; further assume that the picture includes land controlled by the Department of the Interior (the Carson National Forest is in the background, but it is controlled by the Department of Agriculture). Who would own the copyright on the negative? A straight print of the negative is uninteresting; when he made a print, Adams would spend a long time dodging and burning to enhance details. Who owns the copyright on the prints?

If a photographer sets up some equipment, but an animal comes along and presses the shutter, there is no US copyright. Macaque selfie. Does that mean a wildlife camera trap image cannot be copyrighted in the US? A store owner sets up a security camera that happens to capture the Miracle on the Hudson. Does the store owner have a copyright? Google bolts a camera and GPS unit on a car and drives around town. The driver isn't composing shots but rather just driving in the legal lanes like everybody else. Can Google claim a copyright? What if Google puts the pictures into an organized collection?

During World War II, Dame Laura Knight (1877–1970) received several short-term commissions from the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC); she painted some fabulous World War II propaganda images for the United Kingdom. Some claim that the work is in the public domain because it was created by the United Kingdom government. However, the Imperial War Museums (which received the majority of the WAAC collection when WAAC disbanded) claim images such as Corporal J. D. M. Pearson, GC, WAAF (1940) (Art. IWM ART LD 626) (Joan Daphne Mary Pearson) were created by Laura Knight, are under copyright, and must be licensed.[23] (Copyright situation can be different for her A Balloon Site, Coventry (1943) (Art. IWM ART LD 2750).)

Langmuir, Irving (September 1915), "The Pure Electron Discharge and Its Application in Radio Telegraphy and Telephony", Proceedings of the IRE, 3 (3): 261&ndash, 293, doi:10.1109/JRPROC.1915.216680, ISSN0731-5996 (follow doi to see abstract; IEEE wants $13 from members or $33 from non-members)

The IRE became the IEEE.

In 1984, the IEEE republished the article

Langmuir, Irving (May 1984), "The Pure Electron Discharge and Its Application in Radio Telegraphy and Telephony", Proceeding of the IEEE, 72 (5): 613&ndash, 624, doi:10.1109/PROC.1984.12900, ISSN0018-9219 (no abstract; follow doi to see image of first page; States copyright 1915 IRE; IEEE wants $13 from members or $33 from non-members)

In 1997, the IEEE republished the article

Langmuir, Irving (September 1997), "The Pure Electron Discharge and Its Application in Radio Telegraphy and Telephony", Proceeding of the IEEE, 85 (9): 1496&ndash, 1508, doi:10.1109/JPROC.1997.628726, ISSN0018-9219 (published version has "Classic Paper" below title, states reprinted from September 1915, has changed page numbers and new publisher ID numbers; the same abstract as stated in the 1915 doi record; IEEE asserts a copyright date of 1997 and states the charge to copy the article is $10.00.)

SVG is poor format for technical bilevel bitmaps such as QR code. Fundamentally, the images are bitmaps; they have no slanted or curved lines; bitmaps can be scaled. SVG may offer some advantage with metadata, but the SVG files are bloated compared to PNG. Discussion at WP:SVG help#SVG versions of technical bitmaps. I reverted to PNG pix at QR code and da:QR Code.

I'm not directly involved, but this unblock request is a difficult case. Generally, if somebody requests and unblock and there is minimal support, then they are unblocked with a second chance. Initially, I thought an unblock would be a good idea because three admins supported it. I initially voiced my support, but I also wrote down some ideas that troubled me. Those comments gnawed at me, so shortly thereafter I reversed my opinion. It didn't feel right to support an unblock with so many issues even with the supporters. Turns out, the request was also difficult for one of the supporters: see this edit.

For an RfA, I first take a quick read of the questions and stats. I look for some things that will give a quick answer. Strong clue in Q1 through Q3 and some stats to back it up can be a quick support. Little experience, not showing clue, or wanting the bit to work in admin area with little experience, can be a fast oppose. Generally, I want to see two plusses for a support or two minuses for an oppose.

If there's no fast decision, then I'll sit on the RfA for a few days to see what turns up. It takes time to investigate a candidate, and I have other things to do. If the !vote is lopsided when I come back, then I may skip the whole affair. If the !vote is on the bubble, then I may look further.

I park my car downtown and start walking to an appointment, but I notice water is welling out of the street. It makes the asphalt bubble, and standing on the bubble feels a little spongy. I continue on, but as I walk by the fire station, I report the leak. When I get back, there are barricades in place but no work crew yet. I don't know what happened, but it's fixed the next time I pass by.

Just down the street from my home, a crew is working on a water main leak. It has also bubbled the asphalt, but the water is emerging at the joint between the asphalt and the concrete sidewalk. The crew wants to locate the leak, so they drill small holes in the asphalt. They've made a line of fountains, and the highest fountain is directly over the leak.

I took the bus downtown, spent the day, and now I'm walking home from the bus stop. A couple blocks from home, there's a lot of water flowing in the gutter. A lot of water. And it leads just passed home. Nobody is there, so I call it in. Public Works knows about it; it's just taking time for a crew to get there. Finally, a guy starts listening for the leak. He has a stereo street stethoscope. He listens for a bit, then he moves the head resting on the street a short distance, and listens some more. He finds the location. One of the other workers wants to try it out, so the first explains what to do. And he cautions the other worker to take the stems out of his ears before moving the head.

I'm walking to work from the Square, and as I reach the plaza, I notice a large crowd. I don't know what's up. As I continue down the sidewalk, a small group of people leave the plaza and head toward a car parked on the street. The timing is such that our courses intersect, and I notice it is presidential candidate Mike Dukakis. He reaches out, shakes my hand, and says, "Tell me your name." Wow, what a great thing to say. Here's a candidate who wants to know my name. It sounds incredibly personal, but I know its not.

I walked my normal route to work. I took the side street, walked through somebody else's parking lot, crossed the railroad tracks at the back of the lot, and followed the right-of-way to the main drag. From there I walked into our parking lot, and just as I got to my building, one of the lab directors was escorting some VIP outside. I stared at the guy because he looked familiar, and while I was staring at him, he came over and started shaking my hand. All I could say was, "You look like Governor Jerry Brown." I'm shaking his hand, but I'm thinking I have absolutely nothing to say to ex-Governor Moonbeam.

I've finished up downtown and start heading back. My path takes me by the federal courthouse. There is a gaggle of TV news crews in the courthouse breezeway. I'm curious, so I walk up to them and ask what's going on. I'm told there's going to be a verdict in the Clint Eastwood handicap-access trial. So I go through the courthouse doors, through the metal detector, and up to the courtroom. I see Eastwood and recognize the plaintiff's attorney. I'm there for the verdict in Eastwood's favor. People start filing out, but I stay and listen to a bit of the post-verdict drama. Finally, I get up, leave the courtroom, and start heading for the elevators. I press the down button, but as I wait, Clint Eastwood strolls up. He's left his attorneys behind -- they are involved in a conference at the deputy marshal's desk about 15 feet away. So I get a private audience with Eastwood for about 10 minutes. He tells me about the case, reading movie scripts, and why he decided to spend $1M to fight the case instead of letting his insurance company settle it for $50K. He cocked his finger pistol and did Dirty Harry.

I'm flying out of SJC, and I'm going to take the Airporter at the Santa Clara Transit Station. As I walk up to the stop, I notice a distinguished-looking gentleman already waiting. While I'm admiring his appearance, I notice he looks familiar. Finally, it clicks. I walk up to him and suggest that he is Gerald Uelmen. He admits he is, and we start chatting. I tell myself not to bring up the O. J. Simpson murder case; it would be poor form. Instead we start talking about a local murder trial that concluded a couple days before, and Uelmen asks what I know about the case. I'd stumbled across the preliminary hearing, been intrigued by the cellphone issue, and written a letter to counsel. I found out when the D's radio expert was going to testify at trial, so I caught that -- with the added benefit of seeing the accused take the stand immediately afterward. The case solidified the notion of reasonable doubt for me. The radio testimony put him near the crime scene and away from where he said he was. Random intruders do not kill somebody in the kitchen, clean up the kitchen, and then stage the death at the bottom of the basement stairs. To be found not guilty, two unlikely events would have to have happened, and that is just not reasonable. After I say my piece, Uelmen says he's been asked to do the appeal. The bus comes, we get on, and we continue talking on our way to the terminals. Then Uelmen brings up that he coined, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" and fed it to Johnny Cochrane. OK, OJ is on the table. I tell him should have won the motion to exclude Mark Fuhrman's search. Uelman agrees, but then offers the insight that you take things the way they come, and that it was better that he lost his motion. If he had won the motion, then there would not have been a glove, Fuhrman would never have taken the stand, and F. Lee Bailey would not have had his cross that impeached Fuhrman.